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Reserve Your Seat TodayWhen you're tasked with monitoring equipment in remote, punishing environments, "tough enough" simply isn't good enough.
Whether you're maintaining communications gear on a frigid mountaintop in northern Canada or ensuring substation reliability in the scorching Texas summer, choosing the right hardware can mean the difference between smooth operations and unexpected system downtime.
Here's the inside story on how we, at DPS, make sure our monitoring devices can handle temperature, EMI (electromagnetic interference), and other extreme conditions for you across all 7 continents:
If you're working in isolated locations, you know how it goes. When something breaks, it's never convenient.
Maybe a cell tower station goes offline during a whiteout in Alaska, or a remote oil pipeline sensor acts up under blistering desert heat. Sending a technician is expensive, time-consuming, and sometimes downright dangerous.
We've learned from decades of designing remote monitoring solutions that durability isn't a luxury - it's non-negotiable. As I put it during my factory tours:
"We crank this temperature chamber down to minus 20 or minus 30 degrees (Fahrenheit). We can also turn up the heat to simulate a cabinet in the summer sun in Texas."
If a device can pass our rigorous stress tests, it has a much better chance of a long service in your environment. That's how we know it's ready for you to deploy.
At DPS, we embrace the challenge of harsh operating environments. It's why we source industrial-grade parts and put our products through extensive testing before shipping them to you.
We evaluate them in environmental chambers, push their temperature limits, and confirm that they're stable and reliable.
DPS Co-Founder Ron Stover describes it this way:
"We do have devices... elevated operating temperatures... -30 to 130 degrees. We harden them. We refer to it as Industrial Temp."
In other words, "Industrial Temp" means we're not satisfied until your unit can endure conditions that would make lesser devices fail. In fact, that's our goal: to be the last device at your remote site to ever fail.
In fact, this philosophy was beautifully demonstrated during a Hurricane Irma in the Caribbean. Our client shared logs showing "water on floor", "water at 2 feet", "water at top of rack", "100% humidity".
We were underwater for several minutes, and we still didn't fail until the site went totally offline!
Even though we did eventually go offline, our client was pleasantly shocked at how long we lasted as the site was gradually consumed by flooding.
We know that many DPS clients like you are operating in environments where the weather swings to either scorching summer heat or sub-zero winters. That's why our devices are tested to survive these conditions:
"Our 'Industrial Temp' RTU builds will operate reliably from -22 to 158 degrees."
This all starts with careful component selection. We rely on industrial-grade board components, ensuring that prolonged exposure to environmental extremes won't slow your system down.
When a sudden heatwave or cold snap hits, you can trust that your monitoring gear won't go offline when you need it most.
Reliability in extreme conditions goes beyond just temperature swings and environmental toughness. Your monitoring equipment also needs to handle electromagnetic interference (EMI) without disruption.
EMI can corrupt signals, reduce accuracy, and disrupt communications - problems you can't afford at remote, mission-critical sites. To address this, DPS puts its RTUs through rigorous EMI testing in a specialized chamber. As I say during our factory tour:
"This is where we test our equipment to make sure it puts off just a minimum of interference. Not only will we not disrupt any other equipment out in the field, but our low interference profile means we won't absorb much either. It makes us much more reliable."
Inside this carefully controlled space, DPS engineers power test units from isolated battery sources to eliminate external electrical noise.
Two distinct antennae - an omnidirectional and a focused directional antenna - measure the electromagnetic footprint of the gear.
With the unit inside the chamber and the diagnostic instruments outside, the Engineering team can pinpoint exactly how much EMI the device generates and receives.
"When it's time to test a piece of equipment, we load it onto a dedicated rack. We use boat batteries for power, so there's no outside grid interference. Then, we monitor signals through the wall on an oscilloscope as we perform various tests."
These tests aren't just about finding out how much EMI the device produces - they're about guiding design improvements. DPS engineers translate test results into actionable changes, selecting better-shielded components, refining circuit layouts, and optimizing grounding strategies.
If you've ever wondered why a NetGuardian 832A has 20-30 screws between PCB and circuit board, good grounding against EMI is the answer.
By reducing EMI at the hardware level, DPS ensures that your RTUs:
Just as we build for temperature extremes, we design to handle electromagnetic challenges, ensuring your remote sites remain fully monitored, no matter what external forces come into play.
We know that no two environments are the same. Your site might be perched at high altitude, buried under snow drifts, or sitting in a desert where the temperature shifts dramatically between day and night.
Off-the-shelf solutions might not cut it - so we offer customization options so you don't have to settle.
"We understand that standard solutions don't always fit your unique requirements. That's why we design flexible, modular hardware that can be adapted: adding extra ventilation, creating industrial-temp-rated versions, or implementing other requested modifications."
One of my favorite examples involves a client in Alaska who needed to monitor remote sites that were often buried under snow. With limited site access, it was crucial that their monitoring system remain rock-solid, no matter the weather.
They chose the NetGuardian platform to keep an eye on conditions. These units easily shrugged off frigid cold and delivered the reliable data the client needed. Ron Stover captures the spirit of this success perfectly:
"Many of our clients are flying by helicopter to their sites. They need to know conditions before they arrive."
With a stable data feed, the you can diagnose issues from your desk. The benefit? No more blind gambles on what you'll find at the site.
What sets DPS apart is that we're not just box-pushers. We're solve problems for you - as long as you share those problems and don't assume we're just here to make a short-term sale.
"We adjust specs based on client needs. The external hardware might look the same, but inside, it's tailored for your conditions."
This kind of customization means you don't have to settle for "close enough." You can get a solution that truly fits your specific network and sites.
When failure isn't an option, you need gear that's proven to thrive in the harshest conditions. DPS hardware stands up to the worst Mother Nature can dish out, so you can focus on your core mission at all times.
Are you ready to protect your remote sites, even in the face of extreme temperatures and unpredictable climates? Give us a call at 1-800-693-0351 or email sales@dpstele.com
Andrew Erickson
Andrew Erickson is an Application Engineer at DPS Telecom, a manufacturer of semi-custom remote alarm monitoring systems based in Fresno, California. Andrew brings more than 17 years of experience building site monitoring solutions, developing intuitive user interfaces and documentation, and opt...
